VANCEBORO — West Craven Park, across the street from West Craven High School, was flooded with prep footballers Wednesday morning.

The West Craven Eagles hosted a round-robin style passing league with New Bern, Jacksonville and Eastern Wayne.

“My main things with passing leagues are two things only – competing and conditioning,” West Craven coach Matt Riggsbee said. “As long as our receivers and defensive backs are getting reps and conditioning, it’s good for us because this 7-on-7 is as close as we can get in the state of North Carolina to real football in the offseason.”

The Eagles rotated several different guys in on defense and featured Alkeim Harley and rising freshman Darious Abrams at quarterback.

“You can really use 7-on-7s to get timing down with your receivers and quarterbacks. For us, we work out some kinks on defense as well,” Riggsbee said. “A lot of coaches that I have seen run plays in passing leagues that they will never use, but for us, we just work on what we do.”

West Craven played New Bern first, then Jacksonville, before finishing up with Eastern Wayne.

New Bern also rotated different guys in, especially at the quarterback position.

Nick Myers, Syril Smith and Mike Hughes all saw reps in the pocket.

New Bern coach Bobby Curlings said he enjoys having a familiar opponent in passing leagues. He doesn't like to switch things up too much.

“That’s the good thing about our passing league and why we keep working with each other instead of getting in the bigger leagues,” Curlings said. “We can compete and teach at the same time, as to where if you are in the bigger leagues, sometimes things get so intense that you lose a lot of the teaching time.”

New Bern’s coaches are using the summer as somewhat of an audition to fill many holes left by last year’s proficient senior class.

“We’re telling our guys to prove us wrong this summer,” Curlings said. “After last season, we had depth charts based on what we had coming back, but I’ve challenged the guys to prove us wrong. If they feel like they should be higher on the chart, now’s their time to prove it.”

West Craven will see Jacksonville and New Bern during the regular season, while New Bern will see all three opponents this fall.

The Bears open at home with Durham Hillside. West Craven begins the year on the road at Edenton Holmes.

Jordan Honeycutt can be reached at 252-635-5670 or at Jordan.Honeycutt@newbernsj.com Follow Jordan on Twitter @JHONEYnbsj29